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A federal judge sentenced four men to prison on Tuesday for helping recruit young men in Minnesota to travel to Somalia and fight for the militant group al Shabaab. _0"> Investigators believe about 20 young, ethnic Somali men left Minnesota from 2007 to 2009 to go to Somalia to fight for al Shabaab, which the United States designated a terrorist organization. Three men who cooperated with investigators were each sentenced to three years and a fourth man was sentenced to 12 years in prison.   "These defendants, by providing material support to a designated terrorist organization, broke both the law and the hearts of family members across the Twin Cities," U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones said in a statement. Eighteen men were charged after a four-year investigation. Eight were convicted and the rest are thought to be fugitives or to have been killed in Somalia while fighting for al Shabaab. On Tuesday, Omer Abdi Mohamed, 28, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after

He may have been the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. He may have written a book extolling constitutional values in a democracy. And he may have run for president on a civil liberties banner, pledging to reverse the legacy of George W. Bush. But as U.S. president for the last 4-1/2 years, Barack Obama has faced accusation after accusation of impinging on civil liberties, disappointing his liberal Democratic base and providing fodder for rival Republicans as he deals with the realities of office.   News in the past week of the federal seizure of phone records from the Associated Press news agency and the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative Tea Party groups, has intensified criticism already simmering over the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and aerial drone strikes abroad. Asked at a news conference on Tuesday why the administration had not done more for civil liberties, Attorney

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday he had ordered the FBI to open a criminal probe in a growing scandal over the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative political groups for extra tax scrutiny. Holder's announcement came about four hours before an inspector general's report on the IRS portrayed the tax agency as plagued by disarray and "insufficient oversight" during its struggles to review the cases of hundreds of advocacy groups that claimed they should be tax exempt.   The audit, which drew some backlash from IRS officials, also underscored what the agency had acknowledged last Friday: that the IRS had used "inappropriate criteria" for evaluating tax-exempt groups, in part by singling out scores of conservative Tea Party and "Patriot" organizations for increased scrutiny. The report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration sharply criticized the way the IRS had screened the conservative group

Jodi Arias, the California woman convicted in a sensational trial of brutally murdering her ex-boyfriend, will face an Arizona jury on Wednesday charged with deciding if she deserves the death penalty for her crime. Arias was found guilty a week ago of murdering 30-year-old Travis Alexander, whose body was found slumped in the shower of his Phoenix area home five years ago. She had stabbed him 27 times, slashed his throat and shot him in the face.   Arias, a petite 32-year-old former waitress, had tried unsuccessfully to convince the jury during the four-month trial that she had acted in self-defense after Alexander attacked her because she dropped his camera while taking photographs of him in the shower. The trial, which aired evidence including a sex tape and photographs of the blood-sprayed crime scene, became a sensation on cable television news with its lurid tale of a bright, soft-spoken young woman charged with an unthinkable crime. Jurors could have convicted Arias of a

Billie Sol Estes, a flamboyant Texan who was convicted of bilking millions of dollars from a federal crop subsidy program, died on Tuesday at age 88, police said. Estes, whose exploits in the 1960s captured headlines across the country, was found dead in his home in Granbury, a town about 30 miles southwest of Fort Worth, said Lieutenant Johnny Rose of the Hood County Sheriff's office. He died of natural causes, according to a statement from the sheriff's office. Estes obtained more than $20 million a year for growing and storing non-existent crops of cotton, according to a website, www.billiesolestes.com, created by his daughter, Pamela Estes Padget. The scandal involved phony financial statements and led to the resignation of several agriculture officials at the time. Estes was convicted of conspiracy to defraud in 1965. He was released in 1971 and later found guilty of mail fraud and tax evasion. He was sentenced again to prison and released in 1983. Estes was frequ

A Texas paramedic, who responded to a fertilizer plant explosion last month, is expected to plead not guilty in federal court on Wednesday to possessing pipe bomb components, his lawyer said. Bryce Reed, 31, faces one count of unlawfully possessing an unregistered destructive device. Texas officials have said no evidence linked Reed's arrest to the plant disaster.   Reed was among the first to respond to the April 17 fertilizer plant explosion that killed 14 people and injured about 200 in the town of West. Texas officials on Friday announced a criminal probe into the blast. Federal prosecutors said in court papers on Friday that authorities had found a section of pipe 3-1/2 inches long and 1-1/2 inches in diameter, end caps, fuses and explosive powder this month at a home in Abbott, Texas, a town near West. The resident of that home, whom they did not identify, told police the components came from Reed, who was arrested on Thursday. "Mr. Reed vigorously denies those a

A U.S. citizen began a 15-year hard labor sentence at a "special prison" in North Korea on Wednesday, for what authorities described as crimes against the state, North Korean state news agency KCNA said. _0"> Kenneth Bae, 44, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in South Korea , was sentenced on April 30 after a North Korean court convicted him of what it said was an attempt at state subversion.   Members of his family had told U.S. media at the time of his sentencing that Bae had been working as a tour guide, bringing people from China into North Korea. They said they were baffled by his arrest. Bae was one of five tourists who visited the northeastern city of Rajin in North Korea in November, and has been held since then. The State Department recommends that U.S. citizens avoid travel to North Korea, although it does not block trips. (Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Bernadette Baum)